Match of the Millennium

Description: Culture clash! Though their mentors couldn't quite make it, ideologies collide when two very different, but very similar fighters meet in a idyllic, picturesque spot! Will two mystically fated rivals find a way to achieve a pure and godly harmony? (In the background: "Shugendo is extremely annoying!" "You and your big dumb Texas!!") ...not likely.

[ARISA]
It's a good thing that Arisa Hawkins' typical outfit is both beach-ready wear AND sufficiently covering and useful for combat, because apparently 'a change of clothes' is now a much more complicated situation for the NFG folks who are STRANDED on a HORNY ISLAND.

[sound of frantic backspacing] TROPICAL ISLAND.

With the NFG crew using what vehicles remain -- jeeps, mostly -- to transport people across the expanse of Zack Island's resort, the trip out to Bass Island during low tide (the only way it's accessible by land vehicle) was blessedly uneventful, likely allowing for plenty of small talk or meditation or any of the more peaceful activities one gets up to before beating the hell out of each other for the entertainment of a global audience.

Chevelle Beaumont's pep talk convinced Arisa to keep at it in the NFG, and she was matched with Genie -- whose resilient attitude the Texan had said she appreciated, in her initial itnerview -- as a mentee. The Zack Island trip would have been a chance for them to bond, for Arisa to learn, and all that. Then some superantural firebird blew things up, everyone's now stuck here until a rescue attempt can be made, this 'Junko' person gets bored, or both, and it's all gone to hell.

Oh yeah, and her opponent in this battle -- in the tournament the NFG is insisting on continuing, because what else is there to do on Definitely Not Horny Island? -- is the person Arisa claimed she likely wouldn't get along with in saidsame interview.

Hmmm.

All this goes out the window, however, when the group is led down to the 'underwater arena': a section of the hotel built intentionally below the high tide water line, with reinforced glass giving anyone in the place the distinct impression that they are fighting *under the sea*, as coral formations are visible in the distance, tropical fish swim by, and the entire thing is filled with the hazy blue-gold glow of sunlight filtered through the surface of the water.

Taking off her shoes and socks, Arisa runs into the room and looks around in wide-eyed glee. "Oh this is SO COOL!" she shrieks, running over to one of the far glass walls and waving frantically at a school of tetra. "SO cool!"

[HOMURA]
"Ehhhh, this is really kind of academic at this point, isn't it..."

They were being forced to battle! Against his will! They're stranded! ... not that Homura actually minded any of those bits, he's actually quite glad to be free of the shackles of the demon ship and its obnoxious, devious pitch and roll. Homura had become convinced that the beast had many layers, and would never quite be defeated as long as his soul wasn't aligned correctly -- obviously why the boy did not bring a single thing to eat or drink, and not much more than a rolled up straw mat for meditation. It is absolutely not that he'd forgotten at all.

He also forgot to collect his sword back from Xander as well, a poor choice that left the boy carrying a cheap straight-bladed little set of swords criss-crossed at his back. However, he did manage to remember to bring a change of clothes, and the boy is wearing a set of sandals on his feet, and an altogether lighter ensemble in the same red-and-white he's been known for. He's only half as bundled up as he normally is -- his toes are showing, for one, and his huge jacket is a lighter kimono-style jacket, at least. The young boy is still lost in his clothing, but maybe he might actually be mistaken for a person, at some point. Plus also a big round rice hat. So, he is technically wearing beachwear. It's good enough for HORNY ISLAND, right?

Wait, horny island?
Should he really had saved his archrival from the ship then, the K-devil lady? Did he inadvertantly doom her to a fate of shoddy flirting? Oh no D:

"Ugh... fire bird terrorist people are so stressful.. I should do something about that ... yeah, it is pretty cool isn't it?" Well, Homura is not at all paying attention to what's going on around him, too esconced in his thoughts, and his agreement is purely to project a sense of harmony. The young boy traipses down into the underwater arena with eyes closed and a tiny puff of air from his mouth, before he even actually starts to look around. "I -- oh wow, it actually is pretty nice. --hey!"

Homura noticed something! He lifts a finger, a hand wrapped in beads and all manner of charms still, with a tiny little snap of a rattle. "You're that girl from that interview! Myo'o won't forgive the situation if I don't harmonize with you! Never mind that I'm teammates with a scary monster woman! And that I'm atrociously late! -- wait, did you just get here too?"

Pfff. "Well then, I guess hurrying was kind of a waste then...ano..."

[ARISA]
BACK TOWARD THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND NFG SEASON:

Comics-esque dossiers on the new fighters went out to the public, based partly on their entrance applications and partly on the interviews they gave, if they deigned to give one. Arisa answered her interview request somewhat late, and had been looking over the various challengers as she attempted to answer her questions, particularly the one about rivals.

"A few knight sword dudes, a couple-a supermodels apparently -- whoa, there's still matadors?! Wild. Few folks where I don't get th--"

The thing about being the daughter of a demon hunter and an oni is that you have a lot of cross-cultural knowledge to draw on. 'Lower world'? Enigmatic not-quite-real-people speech pattern? From the mountains of Japan? Weird ascetic vibe?

"Ah, HECK."

Well, at least she had her answer for the rival thing. Still, Arisa has to wonder: did anyone at the NFG see the same signs? Hmmm. Hmmmmmm.

NOW:

The Texan is yanked out of her fish-inspired reverie by the arrival of Homura, who even shows up wearing red, white, and black! Turning from the glass wall of the arena, there's a brief but very visible moment of adjustment while Arisa puts on her game face and/or Talking To Strangers face, giving her opponent a little wave, at which point he starts talking about Buddhist deities and 'harmoizing' (it is impossible for her not to get a 'what?' expression at that one) and the Texan's demeanor cracks just a LITTLE bit. "I don't think the Buddha is gonna care one way or the other, dude," Arisa says with what one might imagine to be some warranted caution, "but nice to meet you either way?"

Oh yeah. He's DEFINITELY a--

There's a chiming sound as Arisa's phone goes off (and Homura's might too, if he has one); pulling it out, the blonde thumbs open the lock screen and reads. "Looks like our mentors' jeep got caught by the tide? They're not gonna make it in time, apparently?" She does not sound thrilled at this prospect. Slipping her phone away, the Texan rolls her head on her neck a bit before looking at Homura. "Alright, well... I guess we can do that. I'm good any time." Through her jangling nerves, a little sliver of a smile still breaks through. "Seiseidoudou and all that." Americans, am I right?!

COMBATSYS: Arisa has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Arisa            0/-------/-------|

[HOMURA]
"tte..." the boy comments to no one in particular, scritching the side of his head. He was really expecting to be admonished a little more. Maybe for being late, maybe for not wearing the right clothes, maybe for forgetting to get back his real sword from the karateka -- really, there's a whole lot going wrong right now that Homura has feelings about, none of which appear to be important by literally anybody else.

"hey... you shouldn't be so unmindful. The kami definitely take sides. I should know."

As he chats, the boy slowly unwinds the beads around his wrist loop by loop. As he does, there is a distinct quiver in the airstream surrounding him. It can just barely be detected by those with sufficient senses, feeling a bit like the movement of air from the crackle of a fire that's too close, or bits of moisture on the skin from a rushing tide at midnight.

The phone rings. Homura doesn't seem to have his phone on him. Does he actually have one? You can almost see the question mark floating above his head.

"What? That doesn't sound like scary-sama. I'm sure she's just biding her time to destroy you -- like -- so!!"

Homura points with the absolute authority of Shugendo at the nearest creepy shaded place, underneath an outcropping. Which is obviously empty.

"Uuh. I mean, like -- so!!"
Nope, not underneath the spooky abandoned umbrella either.

"Then--- right behind you!!"
Hmm. Not there either. Wait, how did Homura move so fast--

"Ano. Ano?--ano??" The boy, completely nonplussed by this chain of unfortunate events, lifts up a rock with the toe of his weird style of waraji, a cheap little sheathed sword hoisted over his shoulder. The search for vampires continues for not too much longer. "???"

"Well, that's no good," Homura decides. clearly off in his own little world. "What if she beats me up and tries to seal me or something? I'd have to get more swords. Ugh, that would be a pain to wriggle out of... maybe if I harmonize with her quickly the idea won't come to her. I wasn't that late, was I? No, because then she wouldn't be here either.."

He's still distracted by the time Arisa gets ready, though at least he's mercifully within fair striking distance now. "Mmm, right, sei - sei - ru - ten, we all honor the cycle of transmi--wait, what? OH. Right. ano -- what is it the Americans say? Let's give everyone a fair milkshake!"
Homura seems proud of himself for that one.

COMBATSYS: Homura has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Arisa            0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0           Homura

[ARISA]
To the outside world, Arisa Hawkins is observing all of these antics with a... well. She's not exactly great at hiding her emotions, so there is a strong note of 'okay what?' as Homura's actions get increasingly, from the Texan's standpoint anyway, erratic. 'Scary-sama' is who? Something about beads -- while her heritage gives her no special powers, her *training* certainly allows Arisa to sense supernatural power, and her grey-eyed gaze drifts that way momentarily.

INTERNALLY, she's running over everything her dad ever told her about [burst of static]. Not inherently evil, but certainly cunning, and fond of tricks. Whole thing could be an act? The sword(s) feel like they mesh. no obvious, glaring, mythological weakn--

"No American has ever said that!" Arisa suddenly hears herself say, entirely and obviously flabbergasted.

A pause, a pinch to the bridge of her nose. "Okay. Sorry. Okay. Let's just, you know, get this going." Something about this entire situation is giving her a migraine for some reason! What is even going ON!

There's a moment of stillness where the Texan has politely waited to see if Homura wants to make the first move... but when he does not, she certainly appears to be willing to: ducking across the distance between the two, she tries for a very simple and direct brawling technique her mother taught her: elbowing your opponent right in the gut.

COMBATSYS: Homura blocks Arisa's Medium Strike.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Arisa            0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0           Homura

[HOMURA]
"Eh. Ano. Wha?" Homura's proud look melts away, extinguished mercilessly by the Texan stranger thing's outcry for normalcy.

"Bu -- why not?" he asks. "I don't know much about that kind of thing, but from what I've heard, your milkshakes sound delightful. If they're fair, even better. Shakes? Maybe I'm referring to them wrong. Ice creamies? Chill tasties? Ehhh..ano.. I'm messing this up.."

She apologizes. "Oh, right right. No problem. Sorry." They're supposed to be fighting.
--kugh!!

Despite being ostensibly ready, Homura is then instantly speared in the gut with a pretty honest elbow, which knocks his hat smooth off his head, leaving it to stick in the sand where Arisa hit him as a makeshift tombstone. The boy offers very little resistance to the swift blow, and she can feel his arms and legs ragdoll out as she executes a picture-perfect attack to knock him into next Tuesday.

Luckily, he's not quite as inattentive as he appears.

She can tell, with sharper senses than most, that the 'mass' of the boy seems to change almost at will, and the moment his feet leave the ground, all pretense of resistance to her strike is dissolved. Hitting him is like hitting a wet towel. In a flutter of haori silk, the boy tumbles end-over-end in a gross mismatch of linear force to angular momentum, his little 'oof' sending him off on a weird upwards angle in comparison to the arrow-straight hit he got clocked with.

"oh, wow--" Homura observes with some impression, completely inverted in the air. "Almost a twenty percent -- oof! A little harder, and you'd give that karate guy a run for his money.."

With all of the physics of a big lopsided soap bubble, the boy seems to manage his momentum with a single kick, turning most of his momentum into a roll in midair. His free hand -- noticeably the one that was wrapped up in beads a moment or two ago -- seizes the end of his sheath, darting behind him to grip the smooth wood where the tip of his sword is. His hand shifts, clicking the weapon out of the bare sheath, and then with a silver flash, the boy executes a flashing blow shaped and timed just like an inverted checkmark, the tip of his sword drawing out the square slash in shades of grazing silver energy as he reasserts his momentum all into a downward cut directly offending Arisa's personal space.

COMBATSYS: Arisa fails to counter Crushing Strike from Homura with Chouten Jutsu - Mitsuboshi.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Arisa            0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0           Homura

[ARISA]
Fast-forwarding to the point: Arisa's not a fool, and she backs off a step as soon as it's clear that her blow just hit a clone or a log or a shadow or whatever the hell that was was. Well, it was right there in what she remembered her dad talking about, right? Tricksters. Don't trust your immediate senses. Which is probably why she's reaching into whatever Schoolgirl Hammerspace (universal access to young women of Japanese descent) she has access to and producing three ofuda.

Shugendo and Onmyoujutsu are spiritual cousins, so perhaps Homura knows a shikigami when he sees one, because with a quick mudra on Arisa's part, that's what the ofuda become -- circling wisps of light that are fully capable of blocking, intercepting, and providing a reprisal to Homura's sword strike.

IF the angle of the blow hadn't taken the blade through the narrow but extent gaps in their formation.

As the shikigami fade and the Texan reels back, bleeding profusely, she coughs wetly, then brings a hand to her mouth and wipes it across, glaring across the distance at Homura and preparing herself for whatever happens next. "Dude," she says, watching her opponent carefully. "Are you being weird and obtuse like, on purpose? Is it an ESL thing? Because like, nihongo definitely ga hanasemasu, bro, if it'll help me understand you a little better."

[HOMURA]
Two taps of the very tip of his waraji on the ground, as he tests his footing. A tiny little clatter, as the wooden sheath is tossed aside across the ground.

The boy rests his newfound weight on the backs of his heels, patiently and politely waiting for the onmyouji to recover from his strike, taking the time to slowly swap hands, the hilt of his blade passing from one to the other, held in a loose-fingered grip. Even as he does, she can feel the energy crawling in that hand, just barely held at bay by the few remaining seals wrapped around his wrist.

"You're such a serious kid," Homura laments, despite being at least a slice younger than his opponent. "Do you have a mission too? Maybe we'll have the same goal. Maybe not."

The boy's red eyes lift over the cusp of his shades as the fingertips of his free hand lift, brushing against the nape of air where those shikigami dissipated, as if he could feel it still. "...ah... oh well.. I wonder if I still know how."

The boy's expression flattens as he calms. "Kimi no kakai wa 'dokumetsu.' ... wareware no shijou meirei wa .. 'jinchuu.' Soredake...ano..."

It's not really much better.

"..iku." Oh.

The next sound is of the boy's footwear sliding across the ground as he closes the distance between the two in just a single short hopping step, landing quickly and kinking his hip to one side, lifting the flat of his sword to his opposite wrist. She can feel the shift of forces, the channeling of power through the tiny little network of seals running down his arm, focusing it, containing it until it reaches his sword.

The product is a single fang of bright moonsilver chakra, flashing out as an extension of his long-arm thrust, a flash, and a flare of light carrying him through one-two-and three parts of a flashing blade thrust technique, his haori lifting like a great wing in the backblast.

COMBATSYS: Arisa blocks Homura's Tsukijin Stream.

[          \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Arisa            0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0           Homura

[ARISA]
A hand comes up and scratches at the side of Arisa's cheek, and against all logic of fighting, she looks vaguely off to the side as she does so. "I dunno that I'm that serious so much as that nothing that's come out of your mouth so far has made sense, dude," the Texan says, turning back to her opponent. There's no real malice in her tone; it's not as if she's trying to make fun of Homura or anything; the lilt of her tone, the rising intonation at the end of her sentences... it's more quizzical than mocking.

Then Homura tries to say it in Japanese and Arisa obligingly listens... then beetles her brow just the TINIEST bit. "Nnnnnnnope," she says, cheerfully. "That did not help one bit, though points for trying." Cleansing poisons? Missions of loyalty? What?

She suddenly blinks. "Maybe you're like Al?" she suddenly says, taking her own turn at being obtuse. "This is all cosplay, maybe?"

Then she has no more energy to worry about it, because there's a glowy sword slash to worry about. With a deft flick of the wrist and a little dramatic spinning motion, Arisa's hand suddenly has a shiny silvered knife in it; another of her mother's patented demon hunting tools. With no interest in getting cut again, there's a swift one-two-three deflection of the sword itself, using the surprisingly sturdy knife as a fulcrum. This doesn't equate to escaping unscathed; you can't parry silvery moon energy with a knife, no matter how silver the knife is, and that makes Arisa hiss in pain briefly, but: not cut, goal met.

There's a flash of silver as the knife disappears back into a sleeve and Arisa hops a step back from Homura. "And no, no mission... not really, anyway." Another blur of motion, and suddenly the Texan is holding a pair of SMGs, identical with one exception: little charms hanging from the grip of each, one a blue topaz in a gold setting, and the other a yellow quartz rose in a silvered setting.

Pointing both guns at Homura, she grins. "I'm just here to try this out and have a good time, you know?"

Then she opens fire, which is probably a GREAT idea in the glass-walled arena that is LITERALLY underwater on the other side of said glass. They probably took that into account when they built this, right?

[Natalie Portman face] Right?

COMBATSYS: Arisa successfully hits Homura with Blue Topaz and Yellow Rose.

[           \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////             ]
Arisa            0/-------/=======|=======\=------\1           Homura

[HOMURA]
"Ah, there's no mercy, is there..."

The blade, still shock straight, lifts slightly as the young boy straightens from the bent knee of his thrusting blade stance. There's a certain eccentricity in the motion, as the boy holds the hilt of the blade nearer the end than the blade itself, and furthermore tilts it straight up to balance strangely in his hand. There's some sort of relevance and ritual to the stance, but it's not immediately apparent.

"I guess there's no way around it," Homura supposes, rolling the hilt of the nameless sword until the end is flipped false. A slow, methodical motion, as he slips the blade over a knee, to trade the weapon back to its so-called appropriate hand, leaving his other hand free. The air stirs around those seals as he moves.

"We're just not going to see eye to eye until you're defeated, huh?"

It sort of seems like Homura might be getting serious, at least right up until the demon hunter pulls out (from where?!) a literal pair of very fancy looking submachine guns. "Hey -- what, wait, wait a minute!! Those aren't safe literally at all! Why are you smiling so scary!? -- ah there's no fate worse than--!!!"

VIEW: From the ground, Homura being mercilessly gunned down by double SMGs. You can literally see his body getting riddled, the boy shaking, his haori getting blown back, literally just-- oh man it is definitely not PG-13. If he was thinking of dodging, he certainly never got around to it, and the boy goes down right where he stands like the tragic end of an urban drama, riddled with bullets, getting blood all over the place, and basically ruining his nice summer colors. At least he was wearing red to begin with.

"Glk-- uhgh," Homura comments, from the ground.
"p--prepare my next name, I'm ready to go on to the next life. Agh. Wait, the mission's not over yet...? Oh..."

The boy slowly sits up, from his hobbled position on the ground. Blood droplets spatter on the ground as his voluminous sleeves drag, and the boy takes a moment to gather his sword as he stands. "ugh... fighting is such a grisly business.." he groans, dusting himself off, temporarily trying to dab away some blood with his sleeve over his face. Sniffing, the boy looks behind him, at the bullets lodged in the glass wall behind him. He points up, and over his shoulder in a peculiar way at the glass while looking back. The weird part of it is that he's primarily using his sword hand for emoting.

".... did anyone ever tell you that it's not a good idea?? You're a triple-A class pesky person."

He lifts his free hand, making a single gesture, before locking his fingers. By now, she can feel -- and see -- the silver energy reflecting out in front of his palm. And worse yet, the energy bleeding off of his seals are being drawn in by the tiny little mote, crawling powerfully around the silver light -- and igniting the charging blast in pale flame. It grows ominously.

"But, I did kinda warn you. Myo'o, forgive me--!!"

In the very last moment, Homura slams his hilt against his wrist, holding it tight to support it. The result is a rolling blast bigger than the boy, a massive boulder-sized gob of chakra whose recoil drives him back on his shoes, the shugenja skidding back about two feet with the release of the blast, which shreds one of the seals on his arm into so much confetti.
It's really entirely likely that a firefight is about to break loose in an aquarium. If it isn't by most definitions already.

COMBATSYS: Arisa overcomes Amaterasu Gear ZERO from Homura with Hybrid Jutsu - Tansei Overdrive.

[           \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////             ]
Arisa            0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0           Homura

[ARISA]
She could handle it. He was weird, but she could handle it, RIGHT UP until this very second, because as Homura makes his reply to her assault, THIS is what comes out of Arisa's mouth:

"Grisly?! Bro, YOU are USING a SWORD."

The sentence drips with all the pent-up incredulity that Arisa has been feeling well up in her this entire fight. Eccentric is one thing, but it truly as if there is something about Homura that irrationally scrapes across her nerves like a rusty file, and the shugenja wailing about the violence of guns after, and this cannot be emphasized enough, CUTTING HER OPEN with a LITERAL BLADE, was the last actual straw.

And then there's the fact that he's gearing up for a big attack, which... well. Just the side splash of that silver energy before hurt like heck, frankly, and Arisa has no interest in experiencing the full brunt of it. Plus, well... she's just... he's just...

"Fine!" the Texan says, as the mountain lad begins his Mega Man buster charge sequence. "I don't know why I'm shouting! But fine!"

The gun with the yellow topaz gets stowed to Myouou-knows-where, but Blue Topaz stays right where it is. Instead, Arisa's other hand is suddenly holding an ofuda between index and middle fingers, the paper visibly surging with energy before, in a blur of motion, Arisa has folded it into an origami shape:

A single, lone bullet.

By this time, Homura's energy has reached its peak, the massive sphere of force about to make its way to his half-oni opponent, but with utterly unearned calm, Arisa slots the origami bullet into Blue Topaz's chamber, voice ringing out. "Let you that guides warriors swiftly descend here!"

Okay that orb is coming a lot closer now. Hmmm.

Sighting carefully, trying to still her rapidly beating heart, the daughter of a youkai onmyouji and a straight up nightmare American woman of a demon hunter lines up her shot and, with a yell of "KYU KYU NYO RITSU RYOU!" fires her shot.

With aching bullet time slowness, the orgami bullet -- formed from a purification charm, empowered with onmyoujutsu exorcism incantations -- fires, streaking into the silvery sphere and quite literally blowing it apart into fragments that rain down behind Arisa in a fan-like pattern, taking huge chunks out of the sandy floor but leaving her unscathed.

As the curse bullet -- assuredly weakened, likely quite heavily, by the effort of lancing through Homura's attack, but still ABSOLUTELY on target for the shugenja -- finishes its flight, Arisa loudly says one thing:

"DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS, _JERK_!"

COMBATSYS: Arisa successfully hits Homura with Hybrid Jutsu - Tansei Overdrive.

[         \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////                   ]
Arisa            0/-------/-----==|======-\-------\0           Homura

[HOMURA]
"Hey, hey! Don't misconstrue things! Everyone's always so sensitive about swords! Is it not a truly great sword?? Okay, I mean, it's not my best sword by far, but---AH! What kind of English even is that?! What even is Texas?!"

Most of Homura's chattering sounds a bit dim and tinny over the roar of flame and moonlight chakra flooding down the barrel of his arm at the intense little Texan, and the sounds of the two squabbling carry over the blast, the roar, and the sounds of gunfire echoing in the tiny aquarium. Perhaps luckily, they are too busy absorbing most of the projectiles for themselves in a hail of silk and wisps of flame to let something silly like 'collateral damage' happen -- the NFG is apparently fully committed to protecting the Island's natural beauty with the faces of its contestants.

"UNGH--!"

In terms of physical knockback, Homura barely moves as the folded bullet hits him in the shoulder, ramming right through his attack and deep into -him-. A sword drops to the ground, sticking there, as the silk of his haori at around the impact explodes outward in a vast, convoluted lotus pattern.

Eyes wide, time seems to slow to a standstill for the boy. And if her eyes are fast enough, she can see the seam of chakra -- in reality itself -- where the boy's arm literally drops off of him, being blown smooth off of his frame. His red eyes are as wide as plates.

That .... was costly.

One would imagine there'd be much more blood, judging from the boy's middle. But the flicker -- there is a visible flicker -- in the air around him seems to reassert the boy's natural composition. He is already moving, his haori spinning in the air as he whirls. It's almost hard to track how fast the boy moves, and part of his movement is not entirely on the ground, as he rotates in place, planting both of his waraji against the hilt of his sword in a deep crouch. His sealed hand drifts down about the hilt.

There is the sound of metal being yanked forcefully from the ground, the snap of silk, a hot wind.

"Ano..." the boy starts, eyes inches from Arisa's face.
"It's time to get mindful or get wrecked."

The boy moves at will, crossing the space between them in near an instant, pulling his sword and running the onmyouji down in an instant. He's slightly in the air above her, and the flash of his blade flares bright silver as he rolls into the one-armed guillotine cut.

An instant later and some fifteen feet away, Homura's other arm hits the ground, completely independent of his body.

COMBATSYS: Homura successfully hits Arisa with Oni Accel.
- Power hit! -

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Arisa            0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\0           Homura

[ARISA]
Now, seeing a man's arm get shot clean off SHOULD bother her. However:

SEVEN YEARS AGO, OUTSIDE ABILENE, TEXAS -- 2AM

Beatrix Hawkins is a large woman, in every sense of the word: tall, busty, curvy, loud. Everything's bigger in Texas, obviously, including its violence-using handlers of the undead, miscellaneous Darkstalker malfeasance, and other supernatural threats. As a big woman, she is a fan of the shotgun, a real up close and personal kind of firearm.

"Now, your dad would know more about jiangshi and such," the older woman present drawls, "but with good old American zombies..."

There is a clicking metallic sound as a shell gets chambered, before Beatrix extends her arm sideways and, without looking, blows a zombie's head clean OFF in a horror movie-esque burst of gore. "You wanna go right for the head. They can't function without a head. Makes NO sense. Dead animated by magic but somehow they gotta have a cranium to function." A shake of the head, a laugh. "Guess God's got a sense of humor about the rules. Anyhow, you get all that, pumpkin?"

Sitting on the flipped down bed door of a nearby well loved pickup truck, 12-year-old Arisa sips from her 7-11 Big Gulp and nods, apparently not bothered at all by what she just saw.

NOW:

"It's a state! In the United States!" the blonde shouts back, astonishingly nonplussed by the shugenja suddenly missing an arm.

Oh right then he's suddenly in Texan airspace and her brows furrow. She attempts to snap out her silver knife to parry, or at least deflect, a second time... and the motion simply opens up her front more for Homura's blade, which slices a clean line down her front.

Problematic.

But somehow he's incensed her, or at least awakened SOME kind of... not even Arisa could describe it at this point. Something about him using the word 'mindful' followed by 'get wrecked' but not knowing what 'Texas' is makes her want to throw both hands up in the air and stomp out of the room. But she cannot do that, so she opts for the next best thing, which is attempting to beat him senseless.

Before Homura can fully retreat from his advancing slice, the demon hunter's daughter reaches out for the REMAINING ARM, I GUESS and attempts to yank him off balance, pulling him toward and then past her onto the ground. "DO TENGU NOT HAVE ACCESS TO WIKIPEDIA, OR SOMETHING," she demands (there is no '?' in her voice).

Oh right AND as he slings on by, should this technique work, there's the little matter of her OTHER hand stuffing a vial of enchanted holy water into his haori, too.

Which, uh... this is the good Castlevania stuff, folks, not that weak-ass baptismal stuff. Which is to say: it explodes into holy fire afterwards.

COMBATSYS: Homura manages to escape Arisa's Rio Bravo Handshake!

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////                     ]
Arisa            0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\0           Homura

[HOMURA]
"Just one?? Doesn't America have like seventy states?? Does Texas have huge cannons or something?? Hey, are you hiding more guns somewhere??"

He chatters almost as fast as he moves. The boy lands feather-light on his feet, despite the sudden acceleration and arrest of his momentum. The sleeves of his haori drape around him like great wings as he makes the landing, lighting into the slayer priest's middle. The motion is ablated, however; his missing an arm makes following through the sword stroke hard to sustain, and the blade is jammed through his belt loop with an emergency's sort of precision.

The boy's tone is more incredulous than hers at this point. Arisa at this point is proving to be a very noisy and opinionated barrier to his mission. There is a troubled look on his face as the boy lifts up on one heel, his lightweight driving him into a tiny bounce as he straightens. Being riddled with bullets is definitely counter to his mission goals here.

Of course, losing an arm doesn't help either.

"Ano! Is that second thing a demon thing or a computer thing? Watch who you call a tengu--!" the boy finally asks, as she latches hold onto his arm. His voice catches on something unseen as he continues chattering. "Yo--~~~u~u~u just don't u-u-nderstand true asceticism, do you?"

His voice tumbles and flanges, as if a radio transmission falling out of tune. Part of this is the sudden change that she feels, going from having a very clear grip on his wrist to suddenly her hands closing around nothing but air. Through one vertiginous moment, the boy's voice emanates from somewhere inside of the demon hunter as suddenly no part of him seems to pose any physical barrier to her at all.

Several problems: The boy simply doesn't weigh anything near what he should weigh when pulled, a lighter thing with geometry all muddled up, his center of gravity almost nonexistent as if she were trying to reel in a kite rather than throw a person. Then, that point is swiftly made moot as he flickers into moonlight, electing to occupy the same finite space as his opponent.

The move is almost so fast that it could be missed by the cameras -- a moment where the boy simply stumbles around Arisa clumsily, bouncing back on one foot as she tries to haul him down. By the time he's behind her, he's still searching for that tenuous sense of balance, holding the potent little vial of volatile water in an open hand, examining it sharply. He's mightly energetic for someone missing a whole arm.

"Wooh, hey, what's this? Watch where you're trying to put things, ano!! I was almost scandalized! We could have ended up in one of those troublesome fan comics together! The staffers told me that's what certain fans do! --eh? ano! mma--mat-'tte!! tatata---"

Now Homura's realized the vial is going to explode. Naa, look at him as he tries to loop and pull his beads around it with his teeth in a haphazard attempt to seal it. There is no part of Homura that seems to have his business sorted out.

At least he's fast. Fast enough to drop his already-chaotic stance enough to try and press a knee into the demon hunter's backside. It's a complicated take on something that doesn't seem like a monk ascetic's move at all; trying to fold the demon hunter's knee and drop her to the ground before she gets any ideas about shooting him again.
He may or may not be slightly trying to extinguish little unsealed bits of holy fire with his moonsilver chakra in the process.
Honestly, it's really sort of a mess.

COMBATSYS: Arisa interrupts Quick Throw from Homura with Nanten Jutsu - Tobihi.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///                           ]
Arisa            0/-------/---====|=======\====---\1           Homura

[ARISA]
Wh--

Actually, scratch that.

"Wh--?"

Twirling with a tiny little growl of annoyance, Arisa tries to track the decidedly slippery Homura visually, which is probably a mistake; she's got the supernatural senses to find him that way and should rely on them, but if nothing else, the ascetic(?)'s demeanor is having the almost assuredly unintentional but definitely useful effect of destabilizing her ability to just Be Normal about stuff.

Case in point:

"There's FIFTY! And I'm not explaining Wikipedia to you! Just google it!" Arisa, if he doesn't know what wikipedia is, is he going to know what googling something is? "Also shugendo is extremely annoying!" Alright fair play on that last one; Homura currently has an ARM floating around here somewhere, is wobbling around the arena like a Ghost-type pokemon, and picked up a Darth Vader vocoder in here somewhere.

The knee, however... well. THIS TIME, Arisa was prepared, although in a way that to an outside observer will probably seem JUST as insane as anything Homura's done in this extremely wacky fight, which is to say she pulled out a giant sheet of paper in a sort of pink-orange hue, working it in her hands as she turns toward the shugenja so that by the time she's facing him, knee still incoming, what she's holding in her hands is... a paper umbrella. Actually a paper umbrella in every sense of the word, since she just folded it out of origami at what might be a land speed record for that sort of thing.

"AND I AM NEVER GOING TO BE IN A DOJIN WITH YOU, UNDERSTAND?!" the Texan shouts, as she dives forward INTO Homura's knee... with the tip of the (folded) umbrella held before her like a spear, the entire thing limned with blue-white ghostly fire. The ascetic's silvery energy still licks across Arisa's body, taking its toll, but in this situation it seems as if she's very likely given as good as she got, especially because when you fold origami using ancient techniques drawing on the tension between yin and yang, it actually feels a lot firmer than folded paper alone!

[HOMURA]
"'tte.. hey, I'm going to WHAT it? That sounds even worse!!"

Homura's face is shock white by Arisa's suggestion, and -- for once -- he doesn't even have enough time to retort when she insults Shugendo, though if he were still wearing his hat, it would have popped off in shock as she drops her fierce braising of his beloved art. "Ah-- HEY--"

Yeah, nope, not enough time to counter this American slander. The shugenja has just enough wherewithal to detect the molding of the onmyouji's chi into paper, and the speed folding of a very powerful origami. Of course, it's much less the -actual- folding of the paper or the umbrella produced therein that offends Homura as it is the fact that she does a full-length torpedo launch right into his knee as if shot directly from Skyrim.

"Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!"

New Fighting Generation cameras, no matter how few and far between and how many went down with the ship, will capture Homura's plight in delicious, luxurious 4K from multiple angles.

(NEVER!!) "oooooooo!!!!"

It's almost assured Homura is going to discover googling his own name by uncovering the remix of the song some punk kid made out of his being nuclear parasol-bombed by a Texan yelling about dojins.

"Geez," Homura can be heard to comment after a few moments of mindful laying on the ground. Dusting himself off, and getting up with a distinct hobble, the boy has a gigantic ofuda slapped over his thigh and knee like a bandage. "You didn't have to reject it so forcefully," Homura complains. "Words hurt you know! N--not that I want to be anywhere in any kind of book with you either! Not even a cookbook! Not even if it had all the delicious sweets in Japan in it! Japan and your big _dumb_ Texas!! Here, look, I can do that too!"

There is a visible spark of released power as Homura pointedly pulls a seal off of his arm, causing a few rapid flickers of his -entire- body. Despite the fact he is apparently having trouble standing still, his discrete place in space varying by as much as an inch as he does it, the boy isn't exactly -mad,- per se...

Nope, the bullet-riddled, one-armed boy is very determined to fold a paper aeroplane with one hand and a set of teeth. He manages to produce a very lopsided, but airworthy build. And, if we're really being honest with ourselves, his presentation as he flicks the lazy little airplane at her is top notch. Hey, look, he even made up a name for it. "Shihikoukidan!"

The paper ofudaplane floats lazily at the onmyouji... and drifts past harmlessly.
"Ugh... r--right. Don't be jealous of my superior designs; it's just a prototype but it's strong. Strong like --"

The actual attack occurs between one word and the next. It, interestingly, has nothing to do with the lazy little plane, as Homura hits -every- point on the compass at once, leaving visible energy traces in his wake as he tries to cross through Arisa's vector no less than three times in an eyeblink. The sound of his waraji hitting the walls of the aquarium and the ceiling are indicators of exactly how fast he actually is moving. During this point, he's little more than a breeze, trying to cut off little pieces of her chakra. From the inside.

It's a pretty awesome display of skill, or chakra, or -- something, anyway. But the boy tries to stick the landing by beating his plane across the arena to catch it, flickering into place an instant later and reaching out...

--leaning--...
..only to find that his little plane banked hard left a few inches away from his hand. "---oop---!"

The wrinkled little thing hits the ground some feet away from Homura, whom, entirely unbalanced and overextended, managing three bounces on his toes before faceplanting into the ground an instant later. "ffffh--" paf
Oh, Homura's still awake.
He's just sulking, immobilized, missing an arm, and resoundingly beaten.
"I'm just meditating," the boy corrects wisely, face-down in the dirt.

COMBATSYS: Homura can no longer fight.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Arisa            0/-------/---====|

COMBATSYS: Arisa blocks Homura's Lower World Shinsoku.

[                      \\\\\\\\  <
Arisa            0/-------/=======|

[ARISA]
Now there's a paper airplane. Of course there is.

Unlike a certain OTHER NFG competitor who produces weapons on the fly, Arisa's origami creations are... well, they're made of actual (if spiritually reinforced) paper. They're real, so when she's done with them, they're persistent. In this SPECIFIC case that is probably a blessing, because it means when Homura starts folding a paper airplane -- which the Texan can only watch with a sort of horrified fascination, head slowly tilting 15 degrees left without her even noticing that fact -- and then follows it by, oh I dunno, TRYING TO CUT HER IN THIRDS it means she's not unarmed.

Unquestionably, Homura is a better swordsman than Arisa... which, while this isn't difficult (she doesn't really study the sword), is also due to the ascetic's singular skill. Perhaps Homura will feel better when and if he watches this VOD later and sees that the various camera angles involved capture Arisa's 'defense', such as it is, which does not make her look particularly good; the first slash goes entirely uncontested due to surprise factor, and of the remaining two, her attempts to parry with the origami umbrella are... let's call them 'mildly effective at best'.

Clothes ripped (at least, neatly cut) in a thousand different places, bloodied and heaving breaths, Arisa can only hunch forward, hands on her knees, and stare at the face-down shugenja, mouth opening and closing as she takes big draughts of air in and out. It is a tableau that persists in blessed silence, for at least a moment, until:

"uuuuuUUUUGH WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS." Arisa's resolve finally cracks, her arms going up in the air, as high as her eyebrows, before her head slumps down on her neck. "Oh god that made me so tired. Like, in my brain, so tired."

COMBATSYS: Arisa takes no action.

[                      \\\\\\\\  <
Arisa            0/-------/=======|

COMBATSYS: Arisa has ended the fight here.


[HOMURA]
Homura is still laying on the ground, deep in a meditative state of absolute mindfulness, his white sleeves and red accents making him look for all the world like a chalk outline. It really is a miracle the aquarium walls didn't break with all the ruckus.
"When I get back," Homura comments helpfully, mostly muffled because he's still mostly face down, "I'm going to tell the first group of tengu I see that your house has all of the sake and delicious spicy mochi in it. Myo'o will back me on this."

A second later and some ways away, his extant arm pops into a puff of energized smoke with perfect timing.
"Ugh. I needed that."

Absolute mindfulness.

Log created on 05:20:17 05/27/2024 by Homura, and last modified on 12:55:02 06/14/2024.